'Not writ in water nor in mist
Sweet lyric throat thy name
The singing lips that death has kissed
Have seared his own with flame'
Coutee Cullen
How could a mind like that
die at twenty-five?
Was God jealous?
Here was a boy,
moulding base clay to a living splendour
that made His Heaven look
like a mere spectre of Hampstead Heath!
Was God calling the boy in
to gild the lilies of Paradise
while the gift was still fresh on him?
The death of Keats,
like his life,
suggests that God is
jealous,
or nothing.
[ Shorter poems contents page ]
©Renate Mitchell.
May not be reproduced in any form online
or offline without explicit written permission.